Fast food can be incorporated into a healty eating style, but you have to be very aware of what you are choosing. First, all fast food likely contains bad ingredients, HOWEVER, I can imagine many common "diet-friendly" foods contain that as well (for example, frozen dinners such as Lean Cuisine, snack bars, etc). I don't view fast food as any different than a lean cuisine.
At McDonalds, you can choose to buy a 1% child's milk, cut apples, and a grilled chicken burger with no sauce. The bun isn't great but it isn't horrible for a once-a-week/month choice. The milk and apples is a great snack if you are shopping in Walmart.
At Taco Bell, you can have a wheat vegan burrito (whole wheat wrap, beans, veggies, no cheese or guac/sour cream, put hot sauce)
Etc... lots of great choices. You have to make the decision.
THEN AGAIN... if it makes you feel like crap, don't eat it! Of course!
If you're going to go this extreme, I see no point in even eating out. Not to offend anyone who may work at a fast food place, but the people who work at the Taco Bell, near by, for example are all incapable of comprehending this. Most of them barely speak English to begin with, and every time I have tried to order something different than the normal, it gets messed up in some way. They are trained to make food a certain way, there's a certain process, and anything different than that, and it fails. This is not true true of all fast food workers, just the ones by where I live, especially at the Taco Bell. I see no point in making their job difficult by ordering something complicated. I'd rather just save the money and skip it all together or just make my own, as someone else suggested, which I thought was a great idea.
I don't see it as an extreme... I used to work in fast food when I was in high school, and it didn't bother me to make exceptions. It was pretty common, especially with allergies. Sometimes, I feel like a snack at the mall, so it's the best way to go at the food court. I don't leave the house to specifically get fast food (I would go to a restaurant), so if I'm on the go, why not.
I understand some people think I'm crazy for this, but learning to do this was one of my weightloss techniques. It works for me. Doesn't work for anyone, but it did for me.
Last edited by sacha; 03-31-2009 at 02:15 PM.
Reason: edit
I believe that letting go of fast food is such an obvious choice, and yet a lot of us still eat it (myself included). It's not only better for our bodies, it's better for our wallets.
Take a 99 cent soft taco from Taco Bell. People who go through drive-thrus probably think this is a great deal. But then let's take a look at making our own tacos. It's around 2 or 3 dollars for a pound of beef, a few dollars for tortillas, and then put in them whatever you have on hand. This will make you many tacos, at a fraction of the price. You don't only SEE exactly what you're putting into your taco, you're also saving money.
Have you ever looked the nutrition on any fast food? It's alarming, especially the SODIUM! I was even surprised my Subway and the sodium in the low calorie subs. Arby's too. I really believe all of it is bad. It is loaded with chemicals and sodium, so it can stay fresh longer. Anytime I eat (or should I say ate) fast foods I retained water and puffed up. Plus I had headaches frequently and just felt like crap. It's not worth it.
OK...I'm gonna pop in mostly to be argumentative. Gonna say up front, if you dont like anything about fast food, then dont go..I'm not trying to convince you to.
I see a lot of people who condemn fast food yet still eat out at other restaurants. I hate to break it to you but with rare exceptions "high quality" "sit down" dining is not better for you. It does taste better, for which I am grateful, but at the same time the portions tend to be even larger and many of the food "seems healthier" so it is easier to justify eating more. I have a much much harder time getting out of a real restaurant for a decent calorie alotment. And unless it is a family owned open kitchen that explicitly states sources of food you may be getting just as poor a quality of ingredients.
Supersize me is hardly an unbiased look at the industry, it is sensationalized quite a bit.
First of all, I dont think taking a child to fast food occasionally is "child abuse" as one poster stated. If that was 3 meals a day and the only food available and your child is overweight that is a whole different deal.
Yes I take my kids there occasionally - its the only indoor play area in town large enough to actually run. In a rainy rainy state, that is pretty valuable. A few french fries for them and a less than stellar salad for me in exchange for a solid 2 hours of high intensity play is an ok trade off.
I see nothing EXTREME about ordering the best choice you can there. (I also live in an area where english is not the first language of many employees and they seem to manage just fine)
My kids get their meal apples & we all 3 share 1 kid size fries *heh my 2 year old told the sitter off when she took him to McD's to play and got him fries and no apples*
Which leads to teaching choices vs. being overly restrictive.
My husband came from a household where they ate fast food occasionally. They had coke in the fridge. They ate white bread, Jif and jelly. They always had potato chips in the house. They always had cookies in the house. Neither dh or his siblings are overweight at all or have ANY issues with food. Food was never classified as "good" or "bad". If it was there and you were hungry you ate it. When you were not hungry you stopped eating. What a concept. They had general rules. They drank pop only between meals, milk with meals etc. A meal consisted of a variety of food, simply eating chips for a meal wouldnt have been ok. But for the most part they just didnt sweat the occasional junk. My husband can bring a box of cookies home from work, sit them on the counter and not eat them for weeks.
I grew up in a household where everything was healthy, everything was organic, everything was whole grain. I never ate fast food until i was in highschool on a field trip. I never had pop until about 9 th grade. Candy was limited to easter, halloween and Xmas. And we made popcorn for halloween- healthy us. Every single one of us kids has weight issues. We learned to sneak chips and candy and hoard our money to go buy it. When we did get junk at a friends house we gorged. We were made to clean our plates before dessert so we learned to stuff ourselves on our healthy organic vegetables. And then we stuffed ourselves on the rare treats.
Balance. Balance people. Fast food is not EVIL. It isnt good for you, it isnt nutritious, it doesnt taste great. Eat it, dont eat it, but sheesh.
Please don't be so hard on yourself - but learn from your mistake. Maybe having the fast food one time in the week and than working out a bit harder the next couple of days would have negated the weight gain. We all have bad days though! I do think avoiding fast food is a wise choice, due to the detrimental health effects. Did you ever watch "SuperSize Me"? I do however, enjoy the occasional chicken nugget. I would honestly eat at BK or MCD's since I know how many fats/cals I am ingesting rather than the food at Applebees, Ruby Tuesdays, Chilis etc.. THOSE places STRESS me out with there 2K calorie burger platters
The bottom line is that people need to make informed choices and integrate those choices into a healthy(healthier?) lifestyle. You can easily make better choices at a fast food restaurant and quite frankly, most restaurants are hardly any better, if not worse. Moderation is KEY.
If you choose not to step in a fast food restaurant ever, ever again, then that is fine, that is your choice in your lifestyle. However, it is strange to make the assumption that all food available in a fast food restaurant is garbage. It isn't.
Tons of diet-oriented products contain the same chemicals, such as weight watchers meals, diet coke, "snack pack" calorie chips, etc. If people choose to incorporate those into their daily lives, then fine.
Just be informed!
Being informed means looking at labels and ingredients. Do the calculations! The average sub at Subway is NOT much better than a big mac! Choose whole grain bread, turkey, no sauce except mustard, and veggies, and be aware that you are eating an extraordinary amount of sodium! KNOW that the yogurt with berries at McDonalds contains something like 30+grams of sugar! Choose the milk and apples if this is a problem!
Choices! I have been at my goal weight for about four years now. Choices are what keeps you SANE when maintaining. An all-or-nothing attitude often leads to downfall.
But if you still hate fast food, go ahead, don't eat it! That's your choice and there's nothing wrong with it!
It's certainly okay to boycott fast food. I know that we have dropped fast food considerably at our house, but we still get it on occasion. I hardly think my children are abused by that. But if that is their biggest problem in life, they don't have that bad of a life.
Ennay, thank you for that great post. I will agree wholeheartedly because, like you, I came from a family that never had candy, chips etc. in the house and when I was allowed something like that, it was in incredibly small amounts. Again like you, I learned to sneak treats and binge on 'forbidden' foods. Not a good idea. By contrast, my uncle's family had those things and my cousins never had weight issues.
I agree that fast food, indeed the majority of all bought cooked food, is not as healthy is home made food. Most of the time I'm happier with something I cook myself but on occasion I give into the convenience or nostalga and buy fast food. I'm just glad that there has been a push to offer healthier options, so I can buy that rather than a Quarterpounder or Big Mac!
To restate my post... I'm not eating fast food anymore. I never feel lazy, worthless and sluggish, however once I eat fast food, I feel this way. It's not that I'm going to other sit down restaurants either.
There was a time when I was going to fast food probably 4-5 times a week. I was so addicted to the high fat contents, the easy, thoughtless-ness of it, the artificial tastes. I decided not to go for me, because I don't want to get a taste for it. So easiest thing for me is just not go.
Fast food lead to bad choice after bad choice for me. I go and scarf down a meal at Taco Bell, and feel sluggish afterward, so I don't exercise, and it's a slippery slope for me. On this journey, I'm trying to make good choice after good choice, and not going to fast food places is one of the best choices I've made thus far.
